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'Pygmy': Chuck Palahniuk's 2009 Novel, Plot Revealed!

In emailing back and forth with Chuck earlier this week, I asked him what he's been up to. I might have been feeling him out for what he's been working on a little. But it wasn't my primary intention. Still, little did I know he'd be willing to reveal this much, about his follow-up book to 'Snuff'.

The book is called 'Pygmy', and it's already written! Read on below for the plot:

I've just finished the first draft of a novel called "Pygmy," a dark comedy about terrorism and racism. The lead character is a 13-year-old foreign exchange student sent to live with a suburban, white, middle-class family. Oh, and they're Christians. The visit is for six months, and he's one of a dozen similar kids, all shipped to America to live with typical families.

The secret truth is that Pygmy is a terrorist, trained since infancy in martial arts, chemistry and radical hatred of the United States. He has six months to build a prize-winning project for the National Science Fair. If he succeeds, he and his project will go to Washington, D.C. for the finals competition -- where the project will explode, killing millions.

So far, Gerry Howard says it's the best book I've done. Fingers crossed for luck.

Wow, what a fast writer! On the first glance, it sounds like a great idea for a book. I'm really interested in how he is going to handle the narration (1st/3rd) for a 13 year old. With main character's intelligence and background, he seems capable of advanced thought beyond his age, but still, the narration could be interesting. I'm psyched.

This seems a lot more "high-concept" than what we have come to know from CP. Like a book written with the express guarantee of adaptation. All kinds of thoughts are running through my head, not the least of which is the Simpson's tie-in we have all light-bulbed already. How funny is that that we all clicked on that idea when we heard the plot??? Matt Groening, the pervasive one…

Then there’s the timing of it all with what CP must have been viewing in the news a year or so, which is a positive, perhaps this will be the book that breaks him out of his successful yet narrow niche of reader. I still get rolled eyes and grunts of disapproval from other writers (note: I love that they look at him as something “less” it shows them for the simps they are – however – publishers, agents, and ultimately the writer himself, have to evolve, have to change, and yet remain the same – this was the issue a LOT of people had with Rant, more than one reviewer who I respect tagged it as a sort of Fight Club mad-lib on CP’s part) who view Chuck as a sort of one-trick pony.

But then all good authors are just that, specialists.

Welsh can’t help but write about drugged out kids, Hempel can’t help but write in awesome minimalist style about heart-rending pain, Dianielewski can’t help but write in that poetic and brain-twisting style, Clevenger and his drug references and uber-psycho editing styles all applied to an anti-hero you are dying for as you read, Mark Richard can’t help but write poetically of Southern kids and their ills, Cormac McCarthy and his decidedly western heroes and settings (caveat: The Road) see also: Grisham, Sheldon, Patterson – all those “mainstream” cats. A few examples of great writers that can pul this off are King and yes even Crichton, and now perhaps CP himself, who can write across different genre’s – successfully. This is, what I think, what all successful authors deep down aspire to, the ability to write with authority (head and heart, thanks Spanbauer and Palahniuk) across the sections of a given bookstore’s/library’s shelves.

I always wondered what a talented but predictable writer of spy/political/mystery genre would pull if he took a more “twisted” and less cookie-cutter approach to his craft. John LeCarre gave me this in The Constant Gardner to some degree. The aforementioned McCarthy threw us a curveball with The Road, and now I’m really hoping this is what we get with Pygmy. Just the other way around, a talented writer such as Chuck, but putting those talents to use in what at first glance, appears to be an entirely new literary world for him.

Flippin SWEET! If I read that plot on the back of a book jacket by pretty much any other writer, I'd say that it sounds interesting, but will probably be an ambisious undertaking. Chuck is the only writer I can think of that could make that awesome. Can't wait!

I'm so excited! Its been years and I still love everythign thats he's ever written, often going back re-reading things like inv. monster, survivor and fight club. I can't wait for pygmy, and I haven't even gotten Snuff yet!

I hate to admit it, but I'm scared that this book won't be as fresh and original as his other stuff. I think I might be the only one more excited about Snuff. We'll have to wait, but I'm a little scared.

one thing to keep in mind is this is just the [i]First Draft[/i] he's finished. I forget which lesson it was where he laid out his first draft for Diary but it didn't even halfway resemble the finished book. so who knows where this will turn out in a year.

i forget what lession it was in as well, maybe the "o" in writing, but in the original first full draft of [i]diary[/i], the story was about a house and only in later drafts did the subject change to poor, poor Misty

i need to get another copy of [i]diary[/i] ordered. i enjoyed the hell outta that one.

i've read--random--a few complaints about this one already--[i]already![/i]--about this is such a strange premise, an odd format, and my opinion here is that vonnegut wrote some strange fucking formats that we're some great fucking stories and maybe chuck is breathing some of that in as an example. i mean, really, if we were given in the the sneak peek into [i]rant[/i] something about sci fi and serial killing and a spreading plague and crashing cars for the thrill and the main guy, the serial killer is a celebrity, well, we'd probably have heard talk about it not being original, the whole bash the celebrities and paris hilton and "what do you think about britney" whatever, but reading the book i conjured none of that. of course, to my memory, we got full word about [i]rant[/i] when it was almost complete and this time we get something in-depth while in the first draft. in a year we'll know what this chuck guy has up his sleeves. i really think it's quite funny, in a sardonic haha way, how quickly people form opinions about a finished project that hasnt yet been finished.

Preliminary first thoughts are one thing, and those are always fun to read and chop about, but utter bashing through gut instinct is just… someone maybe trying to be clever

Does anybody have a source from where Chuck says anything about a Rant trilogy, because I've heard about it quite a few times, but I've never seen a real sorce saying so. Would they all be written in that style, because that was cool for one book, but I think doing that multiple times would grow annoying fairly quickly.

He talked about it on tour. It may not be a trilogy as we're seeing it, cause he said Lullaby, Diary and Haunted were part of a horror trilogy, and they're unrelated books. I think he my have meant a sci-fi trilogy, not necessary Rant trilogy per say. And who knows, Snuf could go sci-fi mid way through.

sorry, [i]snuff[/i] is completely unrelated. nothing sci fi about that one--i read the arc a few weeks ago. and chuck even mentioned once--i believe--that [i]snuff[/i] is just a fun, dirty little book and is not part of the forthcoming trilogy follow up.

[i]snuff[/i]: i agree with fun and dirty, but i woulda chose the word "filthy" and maybe added a "raunchy"

I don't think anyone was trying to be clever, JKabal. At least I wasn't. We were just expressing concern over what sounded like a derivative plot. However, I don't know about the others, but I managed to forget about this being a first draft, thus making an ass out of myself. Thank you to those who rubbed my nose in the shit I spewed out of my keyboard.

I don't know how much of it is an "anouncement." It sounds more like Dennis just casually asking him what he was up to and Chuck mentioning that he had turned in the first draft for his next book is all. I think we've all heaped any fanfare onto this.

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